I am happy to redo the recording. Before I do so, please can you tell me if you want the audio recording cable attached to the Speaker Out port on the sound card, or the (much quieter) Line Out port. Also, shall I do a similar recording? That is to say, about 4 minutes of X-Wing, featuring mostly the intro music and various isolated sound effects such as a bit of speech, and a bit of laser fire? Thanks for any feedback before I redo the recording...

Do exactly like your previous recording, but when playing the game, play for a little longer and go to X-Wing Historical Mission 1 or 2(preferably 1).

And please, use the Line Out to record the audio.

OK! Exactly as requested. 😀
X-Wing, 6 mins, historical mission 1. Vols: Master 99, Voice 99, FM 85. Line out used. Audacity rec level = max.

http://www.mediafire.com/?4re8p33at8efrd2

Hmm... it looks like the audio circuitry for the OPTi 82C929A was designed with clones like the LS-212 and DSP24S in mind because my 82C929A with a real YMF262 sounds noticeably more distorted than your 82C929A with the DSP24S clone. Have a listen to the attached clip of my 82C929A playing X-Wing's intro. You'll notice the bass notes come out noticeably distorted.

Another thing: it seems the DSP24S outputs louder audio than the YMF262 because I notice that with the same mixer settings as my 82C929A, the FM Synthesis is considerably louder than the digital sound whereas the balance is perfect on my 82C929A.

Also: for the time being, I won't be able to do anything with my 82C929A because I lost all output from the right audio channel of the YMF262. I'll need a new quad op-amp or try to bypass the quad op-amp where it's broken with a dual op-amp taken from a broken Super NES(those use surface-mounted LM358 dual op-amps, which are perfect for attempting to repair my 82C929A).

Wonder how an OPTi 82C930 would sound like compared to the 82C929A. The 82C929A and 82C930 are very similar, but the 82C930 does not require an external audio codec.

I see what you mean, regarding the bass notes. I wonder what an 82C930 sounds like. Have you ever heard one? I can see a few on ebay. However, I think I've got enough SB clones! hehe.

However, I'm still eagerly awaiting the arrival of my 82C929A sound card with the real Yamaha chip, so I can do another X-Wing recording. Also, I'm still waiting for my Monkey Island 2 CD to arrive, for a recording of the intro FM music. It's that time of year when postal deliveries are understandably slower.

I found an 82C930 for sale at the same flea market where I got my SoundBlaster Vibra16 CT2260 and Ensoniq Soundscape, so when I go back to pick up a SoundBlaster AWE32 CT3600 I left there, I'll be sure to pick up the 82C930.

Ace wrote:

I found an 82C930 for sale at the same flea market where I got my SoundBlaster Vibra16 CT2260 and Ensoniq Soundscape, so when I go back to pick up a SoundBlaster AWE32 CT3600 I left there, I'll be sure to pick up the 82C930.

Great! 😀

Just chiming in to say that I tested my 82C929A card in Windows Sound System mode and Descent works ok with it, stereo sound works. Only problem that I noticed is that sound is very loud, and I can no longer control it using the opti volume utility.

Regarding my noisy SBPro, the noise comes from the FM output. It's clearly visible using the mixer, and upping the volume makes the hiss sound very loud. If I set the FM volume to 0, the noise dissapears. Seems it's broken after all... Also, I read comments saying the SB Pro is a loud card, but in my case I have to set all the volume to max to reach an acceptable level. Any ideas what could be wrong with the card ?

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

So RG100 please please when you get your OPTI card, can you record the Intro tune from Monkey Island 2?

OK, I've got the time to record MI2, on both the Opti clone sound cards! When I run the game, what part(s) do you want me to record? Do I leave it on the intro scene, where you see monkeys dancing, or do I (also) press the escape key, and go to the island by the sea scene. And I think there's another part where you see a camp fire, with people sitting around it. Thanks!

What I do is hit ESC right at the start (Guybrush hanging on the rope) and then just let it run. It will play the monkey song, then switch to the island, people on the camp fire and finally the "part I" jingle music. It then goes silent and that's where I stop the recording.

Thanks. I've made a recording, using the Opti DSP24S clone chip. It's here. BTW, I've just noticed that my previous message to this topic has been removed. In it, I just used the "P word" as in - "Aaaarrrrgggghhhh! shiver me timbers and batten down the hatches. Found any pieces of eight you landlubber scallywag!" I was referring to the disappointing "status" (mustn't say the "P word"!) of a game I bought from ebay. That was all.

I had to change motherboard to make a Monkey Island 2 recording, using the other LS212 clone Opti card. The reason was that using the ~ 1.5 GHz Palomino board made the FM music double the speed it should be! I've changed mobos to a slower Pentium MMX 233 MHz system, and the recording can be found here.

Okidoki finally got around to listen to this!

Dissecting the first few seconds. Quite noticeable difference compared to OPL3. When the beels sound, you can hear a "ringing" noise with your card.

The song also starts off differently. These first few seconds of Monkey Island 2 seem to be a great test for OPL3 clones. The OPL3 manages a very smooth transition of frequencies.

Whereas the clones have something like what I would describe as "steppings" right at the start. Hard to describe.

I think the SB Pro 2 is probably fractionally better than all of the clone cards that I have tested. There's not much in it though. I think they all have their strengths and weaknesses. It's fun to test them all, and then compare them all. It's good that they are still available on ebay, for relatively cheap amounts.

I think one thing that stands out is an ESS SB clone card I tested. It had the ES1686F chipset. (Not ES1868F). The best thing about it was the clean output, using its wavetable header. Definitely worth getting, instead of waiting a long time for a Roland MPU-401AT card to appear on ebay, for example.

retro games 100 wrote:

... I just found another version of my Opti 929 card. It's the image below, and it's identical to the image in my original post […]
Show full quote

... I just found another version of my Opti 929 card. It's the image below, and it's identical to the image in my original post, except for one vital difference. Ace, you'll be able to spot this difference in approximately half a nanosecond! 😉 I must admit that I find this very interesting, especially the fact that both cards share the exact same PCB and FCC label markings.

I just received this card, but its health status is DOA. Oh well. At least the Telewave cards worked OK. I won't be looking for a replacement for this card because I think I've got enough FM music making cards. I noticed that the seller removed the backplate, in order to cram it in to a small shipping box. I wonder if the packer did not discharge static before doing so. Also, the 2 tin can oscis just north of the wording "compuhaven.com" look a bit rusty/leaky.

Might want to replace the crystal on that 82C929A. I had to do that with mine because it was not working at all due to the 16MHz crystal having a broken pin.

Just a bit of a bump... I've picked up an Acer Magic S20 ISA card, which uses the Opti 82C929 chip, however instead of the Analog Devices chip on the card it also has a Crystal CS4231A KL. It also has a Yamaha YMF262.

I've tried the 82C929 drivers linked earlier in the thread but I can't get them to work in DOS 6.22 on my 486 DX4-100. The Install.com program just crashes back to the command line after 'loading program' and the SNDINIT.EXE program just says 'program to big to fit in memory'. I've googled around and downloaded different versions of the driver but they all do the same thing.

Any ideas?

Sounds like your files are corrupted.

That's what it sounds like but 2 different downloads from different locations have given the same results... other files in the archive seem fine 😒

I've got some 82C929A drivers I can send your way if you want.